Vogue’s fashion encyclopaedia: Everything you need to know about the stiletto

Elevated shoes have traditionally signified nobility, power and wealth. Venetian women with money in the 16th century wore chopines to elevate their skirts out of the mud; soldiers fighting on horseback in 17th-century western Asia wore heels to keep their feet in stirrups; and in the 18th century, France’s King Louis XIV wore red heels as a symbol of his authority. Worn by all, regardless of gender, until the end of the 18th century, the heel then fell out of favour with men as fashion began to be associated with female frivolity. After exclusively becoming the purview of women, heels grew higher, only held back by constraints of technology.

Block heels and raised platform shoes may have been worn since the Greeks, but the razor-thin stiletto is a 20th-century invention. Named after an Italian knife with a slender blade and needle-sharp point, the heel was engineered in the 1950s when new materials and techniques invented for aircraft carriers were applied to shoe construction. The use of aluminum and injection molding to fuse metal and plastic made it possible to elongate and raise heels to new heights. The key was in finding a way to support the arch of the foot, taking the pressure off the toes and the heel, and allowing the shoe to move with the body rather than against it.

Stilettos typically range from one to five inches, but must be narrower at the tip than where the heel attaches to the last of the shoe. Designers Salvatore Ferragamo, Roger Vivier and André Perugia have all been credited with inventing the stiletto, sometime between 1948 and 1954. In the 1950s, the four-inch Ferragamo stilettos worn by Marilyn Monroe allowed her to hone her famously seductive walk; and by the 1960s the aspirational Hollywood veneer gave way to accessibility, as it became the shoe of choice for most women. The 1970s, however, brought with it a counterculture that rejected the stiletto, deriding it for being uncomfortable and hindering movement. But with the advent of power dressing in the 1980s, the stiletto staged a comeback—former connotations of the heel being a sexed-up accessory that lacked elegance were subverted to make it the ultimate fashion statement for the formidable working woman.

Fetishistic aspects of the stiletto have gained the heel a reputation as a powerful tool of seduction. The structure of the shoe elongates the legs and forces the chest forward and the bottom backwards, accentuating the curves of the female body. At its highest, the heel limits mobility, forcing those who wear it to take smaller steps. The photographer Helmet Newton and artist Allen Jones have explored themes of female sexuality, violence and power in their representations of women wearing stilettos. Drag queens also use the stiletto as a way to amplify and celebrate ideas of femininity. 

The stiletto had a resurgence in the 1990s and early 2000s thanks to its starring role on Sex and the City. Carrie Bradshaw is famously robbed of her strappy Manolo Blahniks; Mr Big proposes with blue Blahnik pumps; Carrie trips, struts and dances in stilettos throughout the show’s 94 episodes (which ran from 1998 until 2004), heightening the appeal of the shoe again for mainstream audiences. Today, the stiletto garners the most attention when it is pushed to the extreme. The 12-inch-high Armadillo boot from Alexander McQueen’s SS10 collection is among the designer’s most notable creations, photographed outside the runway on Lady Gaga and Daphne Guinness—who have both remarked on the shoe’s unlikely comfort, as well as its unstable pitch. 

Today, the stiletto remains a staple on the catwalk and a signature for designers like Jimmy Choo, Oscar de la Renta and Christian Louboutin—who added red soles to his stilettos in 1993, now a defining detail for the brand. While the heel might have refracted ideas about sexuality and femininity throughout history, it’s clear that it has now come to represent empowerment, liberation and ultimately, the playful side of fashion.